Power Mac (PPC) support being dropped by RPG game companies

[Jude]

I just heard that Basilisk Games, the maker of the Eschalon Book I and Book II games, is dropping Power Mac support. That means that all new versions and expansions to their games will require an Intel-based Mac. If you have older versions of the games, they will still work on your Power Mac as long as you don't update the games.

Worse news is that Blizzard is dropping Power Mac support for World of Warcraft. Since this is an online-only game (a MMORPG), you cannot continue to play without the latest version, which means those without a newer, Intel-based Mac are out of luck. The game will just quit working for them.

I hope they don't do this with Diablo II! But they probably will.

Jude

[draclvr]

Why, why, why??? Do they do these things??? This just makes me sick. Do they think just because you have an older Mac, you shouldn't be able to game any more? Oh, if they do this to Diablo III (assuming it is ever released, that is...), that will be a crime.

[Jude]

Oh, I'm sure Diablo III is going to have high requirements. That's why I said that I would need to get a new Mac for it. (...before my partner talked me into this iMac so I could watch the World Cup on the internet--my old Mac couldn't upgrade Flash Player enough to watch).

I'm just worried that they will upgrade Diablo II LOD to be Intel only (or even OS x 10.4-->). Technically I could still play the single-player game on my old Mac, but I couldn't get the latest improvements except for my new iMac. I already ran into this on OS 9 a couple of upgrades ago...but 2 of my old Mac are dual boot (OS 9/OS X 10.3.9), it wasn't too much of a problem because I can just boot into OS X to play the latest (so far). Yes, I am still addicted to Diablo II LOD!

Jude

[draclvr]

You are indeed hard-core! However, along with The Witcher and Bioshock, it's one that never gets uninstalled from my computer too!

[Jude]

Bioshock is one of the new games I bought after I got my Intel iMac in June. I haven't been feeling well enough to play for hours at a time lately (even for Diablo II), but I am really looking forward to it along with Rome: Total War, Star Wars the Ultimate Sith Edition, Fable: The Lost Chapters, and a bunch of others.

There are a lot of games that come out with high system requirements, and, of course, I am disappointed if I can't play. But when a come has been out that works on my machine, and then they upgrade it and it no longer works, that bothers me a lot.

I don't play World of Warcraft, but I feel sorry for the Power Mac people who bought months of online time only to find out suddenly that the game will not play for them with the next upgrade. I hope they can at least get refunds for the online time, even though that won't compensate for the loss of their game.

Jude

[Kickaha]

Apple themselves have dropped PowerPC support from Snow Leopard, which makes it hard for application developers to continue supporting it.